Region: International
A Global Standard for a Global Problem
Emmett Institute Submits Comment in Support of CARB’s Proposed Tropical Forest Standard
The Emmett Institute submitted a comment to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) yesterday in support of its proposed Tropical Forest Standard (“Standard”). If approved, this Standard would provide CARB a set of criteria to follow when determining whether to trade tropical forest offsets between California’s Cap and Trade Program and a foreign emissions trading …
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CONTINUE READINGOn the future of climate policy
A response to William Nordhaus’s comments about how essential carbon taxes are to addressing climate change
William Nordhaus recently (and deservedly) won the Nobel Prize for Economics for his work on the economic implications of climate change and policies to respond to climate change. In the press coverage after the award, some comments were attributed to Nordhaus that I think are important to consider in more depth – in part because …
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CONTINUE READINGWhat to Make of Chief Justice Roberts’ Stay of the Juliana Case
It’s only temporary but stay tuned
Last Friday, as Rick Frank previously blogged, Chief Justice Roberts put a temporary halt to the Juliana v. United States trial –the Juliana case was brought by a group of children alleging that the United States has violated the public trust doctrine and various provisions of the US. Constitution in failing to protect them from the ravages …
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CONTINUE READINGAmerican Journal of International Law Publishes Symposium on Climate Change Localism
The online alter ego of the American Journal of International Law, AJIL Unbound, has just published its symposium on Climate Change Localism. The symposium explores the implications of subnational actors’ efforts to address climate change. The explosion of initiatives and declarations in recent years outside the federal government, ranging from state and local governments to …
CONTINUE READINGAnother Scary Election (But Not Here)
An election next Sunday has implications for the entire planet.
I hate to give you something else to freak out about in our current Age of Anxiety, but there’s a very worrisome presidential election next Sunday. No, I haven’t completely lost it – the presidential race isn’t here, it’s in Brazil. The election pits a dangerous populist against a highly competent but colorless Establishment candidate. …
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CONTINUE READINGA Potentially Important Climate Change Court Ruling in the Netherlands
A Dutch environmental organization surprisingly won its novel climate change lawsuit when the government appealed.
Although I am in the midst of a series of blog posts (1, 2, 3) regarding novel technologies in the recent special report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), I take a brief detour to report on a court ruling in the Netherlands regarding climate change. Although I am skeptical of its impact …
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CONTINUE READINGAnother Possible Means To Keep Global Warming Within 1.5 Degrees Celsius
Did the IPCC bury the lede regarding solar geoengineering?
In my previous posts on the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), I described how models assume the use of uncertain negative emissions technologies at very large — if not impossible — scales in order to keep global warming within 1.5 or two degrees Celsius (1, 2; see also my colleague Julia …
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CONTINUE READINGMore great environmental and energy law scholarship
Some of the best articles in the field from 2016-17
Some of our readers may be interested in what is happening in environmental and energy legal scholarship. So I thought I’d post again (I also did this in 2016) about the Land Use & Environment Law Review, which is Thomson Reuters/West Publishing’s peer-selected annual compendium of significant legal scholarship in land use and environmental law. …
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CONTINUE READINGNegative Emissions Technologies in the New Report on Limiting Global Warming
The new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report on 1.5°C warming relies heavily on negative emissions technologies.
Last week, I described how the scenarios expected to keep global warming within the 2°C target, which was internationally endorsed in the Paris Agreement, had to assume the use of negative emissions technologies at very large scales. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international assessment body, downplayed this essential fact in its most recent major report, …
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CONTINUE READING“What stands in the way becomes the way.”
Using current climate policies to address future political barriers to more stringent policy
Countries around the world are struggling with the political and policy challenges of developing effective tools to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and decarbonize their economies. (See coverage here for Canada, and here for Australia.) Moreover, even these policy proposals are as of yet inadequate to accomplish the goals of limiting climate change to below two …
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